New Year's 'Hatsumode' (annual worship trip) to Ise 'Grand Shrine'

Ise Grand Shrine is arguably the most important shrine in all of Japan. The head of the shrine is always a descendant of the royal family; this Head Priest or Priestess over the two Inner and Outer shrines of the property is in charge of protecting the grounds, which they are pretty good at, seeing as you can barely see the buildings themselves. Ise Grand Shrine, or Ise Jingu, has in its posession one of the sacred treasures of the Japanese royalty, the sacred mirror. This sacred bronze mirror, along with a sacred sword, are the two posessions of the royal family said to have been passed down directly from the ancient gods of Japan, and are the legitimacy behind the throne that has lasted for millienia (the Japanese like to point out that their monarchy has been the longest continuing monarchy kept in one royal family in the history of the world...that being said, theyve had about as many schisms as the Popes of the Roman Catholic faith, so its not a perfectly straight line of royal family...) but it does make a drastic counterpoint to the Chinese with their 'mandate of heaven-screw that last royal family cuz now we're the big dogs' mantra. And it does drive the point home that the Japanese like tradition, and are NOT fond of change.
So, enough diatribes! Here's the scoop:
Ise Jingu, Mie Prefecture, Japan (1/9/10)
This map isn't very high quality..but see the red balloon at the lower left hand corner? And the other one at the middle right? Yep, that one on the right is Ise shrine--an easy 7 hours away from my sad little left-hand corner home by bus. But not just any bus, the commercial prepacked tour Ehime bus (Ehime is the name of my region.) So, our ragtag bunch left at 5 am in the morning from in front of our town's train station. It was Jennifer and I and our friend Tako and another of my co-workers, Akemi. We conked out for the majority of the morning, zooming along the highway, until we stopped for lunch at a rest area near Lake Biwa to the northeast of Kyoto. There, I got a nice shot of the lake--the weather was so clear, and it was really a dazzling view. and arrived around 1 in the afternoon.
When we arrived in Ise, I didn't know what I expected--but it wasn't these crowds! There were so many people, it was scary just walking down the cobblestone path lined with stores selling everything from traditional handicrafts to any and all kinds of food. And this was before we even got to the entrance of the shrine itself! From there, our group split up and was told to meet up again at a certain time. From there, we crossed a giant wooden bridge after passing under a huge read Shinto torii (gate) called Uji bridge, that stretched to the far shore and therefore the sacred grounds of Ise shrine, Inner shrine, to the goddess Amaterasu. You could tell how important this land was to even ancient Japan, because the huge Japanese cypress trees lining the path were definitely hundreds of hundreds of years old; these things were huge. I've never been to a redwood forest in the US, but if those trees are anything like these babies, I can see why they're so awe-inspiring!
Then, the walk to the river to make a wish and throw in a coin.. the river was so pure and clear, crystal clear with different color rocks..then up the path, past the booths at the front of the shrine grounds selling home purification amulets and New Year's good luck/warding off evil trinkets, and on to the path that circled a giant, tall wooden wall over the top of which you could see a glimpse of the famous traditional Japanese architectural roofs that Ise is so famous for. We went to the stairs where you could enter and pray, but the line was so long...it would've taken at least an hour had we waited in that line! So instead, we opted for the queue to the right, which was a temporarily set up worship sight to the immediate right of the regular place. It,too, was crowded, and as it was it was a grueling 20 minute walk up the stairs just to toss our coins into the makeshift worship spot, but it was worth it; we got to catch a little glimpse of the first building of the three buildings that comprised the main shrine at this sight. Even better, someone (undoubtedly someone verrry rich) had commissioned one of the shrine priests to let them in to do private worship, so we got to watch them enter the gates, the priest did a few ceremonial actions, then they clapped and bowed. That was cool....lucky bastards!
After that, it was circling around the back of the shrine then back out into the woods. Around the main shrine to the goddess Amaterasu, the sun goddess of Japan, were lesser deities' shrines as well, where you could pray. We stopped at a couple of those. Then it was back to the crowded merchant street, where I got a couple of trinkets, and even a cheese and fish covered piece of potato (not as good as i thought it would be..the fish part was a bit of a surprise!) It was super crowded though, so we kept ducking into the stores! I gave a monk I saw some coins for his journey, and we grabbed some ice cream, then back to the bus...
...for a stop back at the west part of the shrine, closer to the Ise city center. It was also surrounded by forests, and although it was near the streets of the town, once you walked through the shrine gate, it was nothing but silence. We pressed on, winding through the forests, and sooner than we thought we had arrived at the main shrine, where flanked by two huge trees surrounded with sacred white lightning bolts, there was, visible through the gate, another one of the thatched roof shrines with the tall eaves. We paid our respects, then our attention was diverted by a strange stone in front of the shrine surrounded by the sacred paper lightning bolts. We walked past the rock, past a pond, then over to two smaller shrines a little ways uphill. When we finished paying our respects, though we were loathe to leave, we headed back over to the bus. Although it felt like the adventure was over, we had no idea what awaited us--a hilarious stewardess/pilot comedy courtesy of ANA's Japan training course. Who knew we'd be watching a flight comedy on a bus? One of those oh, Japan moments...